Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the guest author. Minor edits have been made for clarity.
With regard to abortion, here is the current state of the country: in 13 states, abortion is banned; in 10 states, abortion is legal until anywhere from six to 22 weeks of gestational age; in 18 states, abortion is legal until viability; in nine states, abortion is legal with no gestational age limit. Given that the debate of this topic centers on its morality, specific to whether abortion constitutes murder, it is distressing that the lives of millions are at the mercy of arbitrary and incongruous standards.
Arbitrariness has existed at every level of the pro-choice movement, including in the singular word that has driven the argument for abortion: “viability.” Viability, in theory, is the point in which the fetus is able to survive outside of the womb, though even with the available medical technology it is still challenging to pinpoint the exact moment the baby could do so. The standard for viability also depends on the equipment available at any given hospital to assist in keeping the baby alive when outside of the womb.
Some countries also have different standards of the term, while in America the generally accepted standard for viability rests at around 23 to 24 weeks of gestational age (though children born prematurely have survived at 21 weeks gestation). This is the point where morality and legality clash, for in the 18 states where the law legalizes abortion until viability, an incoherent moral standard is created that a child’s life ought not to be aborted at 25 weeks, but could very well be just days before.
Should morality — what is right or wrong in how we live — be determined by human intellect?
The two main arguments of abortion advocates
The moral and legal incoherence is also showcased in the 10 states where abortion is legal until anywhere from six to 22 weeks of gestational age. And, of course, in the nine states where abortion is legal with no gestational age limit, the law establishes a morality completely determined by the finite intellect of the mother.
With the standard of viability to determine when one could legally abort a baby, pro-choice advocates are arguing two things — the first being that dependency is a significant factor in whether the fetus survives.
Degrees of dependency, however, ought to play a non-existent role in this decision. Should history provide any indication of what ought to occur, a human being who is more vulnerable and dependent should receive utmost protection under the law, not destruction.
The second thing pro-choice advocates argue, with the legal standard of viability, is that there is a determinable point in the baby’s development where a shift in the value of life occurs.
It is unquestionable, and commonly accepted, that human life begins at conception. As the baby grows inside the mother’s womb, humans have daringly attempted to pinpoint a moment when the value of the life outweighs the preference of the mother, or even when the worth of continuing childbearing outweighs the happiness of the mother. Without scientific, moral, or ethical means to support their claim that viability — the already arbitrary standard — is a reasonable point to establish this life-value shift, pro-abortionists have established legal means to override any scientific, moral, or ethical rationality against it.
This is just one example of how standards of protecting human life have become all too arbitrary and dangerously incoherent.
The cultural shift
There should be no surprise, however, to those who are aware of the cultural shift that is occurring in America.
There was a time when a dependence on divine morality and infinite intellect to guide humanity’s finite mind was celebrated under the law, but this dependence has quickly deteriorated. In 1933, the Supreme Court noted the importance of “assuming the existence of a belief in a supreme allegiance to the will of God,” but in 1970, the Supreme Court noted that one needs only “a merely personal moral code.”
In 1961, the Supreme Court acknowledged “secular humanism” as an official religion in America, a religion in which man is god and man’s mind is to be worshipped. A year later, the Supreme Court ruled, in Engel v. Vitale, that public schools are not allowed to hold prayers, even under the setting of optional participation and neutrality to any particular religion. Prayer under these settings, however, are instituted not for conversion or radicalization, but rather to serve as a true reminder that the human mind is finite, that human ambition is often vain, and that without divine law, morality among a people is hard-pressed to be accurate. This is why prayer still exists today in public institutions such as the military and Congress.
Furthermore, in 1987 the Supreme Court ruled, in Edwards v. Aguillard, that public schools are forbidden to teach creationism in classrooms that are encouraged to teach evolution. This exemplifies a recurring theme: humanity is arbitrarily pushing away the view that there exists an intellect above the finite and mortal human.
And this dangerous trend has shown itself in the celebration of abortion.
America’s dark reality
There is a dark reality that clouds America. Sin is its root. The denial of divinity is its means. Imperfect intellect is its end.
This darkness is far from arbitrary. The killing of life — of innocent and dependent life — is most certainly wrong. Yet the dusk that precedes it is what the country is playing with. It is the arbitrary and incoherent line of where light ends and darkness begins — a line that people have created in their own minds — that the country is indulging in.
But if there is any doubt as to where this line is drawn, the side we ought to err on is the side of light.
Light- what a rich word in this dark, dark world.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
